Framing Syria

Maybe when the bell is cracked and just clanks ugly, it might be that it doesn’t bring so many of the faithful to their knees as when it rang true. Some people stay standing. In the case of Syria, it seems a lot of people are standing – harbouring doubts and experiencing confusion – while media yank on those bell ropes ever more vigourously, maybe hoping the resulting cacophony will bring on some form of supplication. .

If you’re one of those many people who aren’t bending at the knee, but who feels a bit out of their depth in relation to what the hell is going on in Syria, then the following analogy might help.

Imagine it’s 1941 and the Third Reich is invading the USSR on the eastern front. In a bit of revisionist history, we’re going to imagine that Italian troops are right there with the Germans. And we’re also going to assume that the Allies refrained from entering into any uncomfortable alliance with the USSR in order to fight fascism, but instead stuck to their pre-war aim of removing the USSR from the world map.

In this scenario, the Allies decide that the Italian troops are “good” fascists, and so they provide them huge amounts of logistical and material support to, they hope, usurp “bad” fascism, but also, obviously, to bring the USSR to its knees.

In England and elsewhere, almost all news from the eastern front comes by way of reports compiled by these “good” fascists, reports that the BBC and other media pick up and disseminate uncritically.

Now if that sounds ‘crazy nuts’ and not something that could ever possibly happen….well, it does broadly reflect the situation that confronts us in Syria today.

Today, the fictitious USSR of 1941 is the real Syria, and the fascists of ’41 are today’s headchoppers.

The poster boys of the “good” headchoppers are the White Helmets of course – created in the UK and funded by the UK and US to the tune of some $US100 000 000 – one hundred million dollars US.

If you prefer your comprehension of the world to be nourished by spoonfed information, then put that aside along with the fact that White Helmet employees (and yes, they are paid employees) have celebrated on the streets alongside other headchoppers; have been present at summary executions; participated in meting out public punishments; have carried out executions; have stood atop bodies on the back of lorries giving V for Victory signs; have used dead babies as props in their videos; have been exposed over and over again for producing utterly fictitious videos; are in bed with Islamic State … (go to 7min 40sec in the linked video of this John Cantlie report for that little doozy)… but hey, maybe it’s for the best to forget all of that and keep the faith.

These are “good” headchoppers.

And as we know, they and their mates have a lot of western media penetration at their disposal.

On media penetration, or more accurately accessibility, it can be kind of interesting to click on the attributions beside Syrian photographs published in western outlets these days. Those photographers that work through Reuters have ‘home pages’ on Reuters’ main site where you can view all of their photographs and trace back to when they first began working for or through the agency. Those who are headchoppers kind of stick out by the fact that their photographs are pretty damned awful (bird on a stick type compositions) and by the fact they only picked up work post 2011. (Reuters only takes on a handful of photographers from all around the world in any given year and competition is meant to be kind of intense. But I guess contacts in high places would help?)

So how did they pull it off – these headchoppers? Well, if you go back to May of last year, you can read that for yourself in a report published by The Guardian where they lay out, off the back of contracts they accessed how…

Contractors hired by the Foreign Office but overseen by the Ministry of Defense (MoD) produce videos, photos, military reports, radio broadcasts, print products and social media posts branded with the logos of fighting groups, and effectively run a press office for opposition fighters.

And the reason?

Contract documents seen by the Guardian show the government appears to view the project as a way to maintain a foothold in the country until there can be greater British military involvement, offering “the capability to expand back into the strategic space as and when the opportunity arises”.

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48 comments on “Framing Syria”

It was only a small step from having ‘pesky embedded journalists’ for military operations to the government creating their own journalists to create outputs to suit the political leaders. I suppose in a sense it was allways thus. People like Stephenson were a rareity.

Unfortunately the people of Syria are just pawns in the Sunni-States/ Western governments manipulations.

“Imagine it’s 1941 and the Third Reich is invading the USSR on the eastern front. In a bit of revisionist history, we’re going to imagine that Italian troops are right there with the Germans. And we’re also going to assume that the Allies refrained from entering into any uncomfortable alliance with the USSR in order to fight fascism, but instead stuck to their pre-war aim of removing the USSR from the world map. In this scenario, the Allies decide that the Italian troops are “good” fascists, and so they provide them huge amounts of logistical and material support to, they hope, usurp “bad” fascism, but also, obviously, to bring the USSR to its knees. In England and elsewhere, almost all news from the eastern front comes by way of reports compiled by these “good” fascists, reports that the BBC and other media pick up and disseminate uncritically.”

If England and France didn’t go into bat for Poland and Hitler didn’t invade the Low Counties and Northern France this might have actually happen. Having read Mein Kampf and a few other books on this subject. Hitler was planning on the UK and the US to support him on his conquest of the East, but the elephant in room was Japan.

Bill, I sent you guys some stuff on the Syrian gas attack, can you please confirm you guys have got? As it was bounce back to me.

[Sorry. I don;t have access to submitted guest posts. so can’t say either way. I’ve removed your email address portion of your name. You probably don’t want that out in public] – Bill

RaveN2 days ago Why the fuck would anyone believe that Assad, who was in the final stages of the war, had good international relations and was about to clean out ISIS would just all of the sudden gas a bunch of his own people. What the fuck is wrong with people, surely [deleted] brainwashing cant be THIS bad as to rob people of basic fucking common sense.﻿

[Couple of things. That deleted shit was entirely unnecessary and wrong on many levels. Throw it around here again and you’ll get banned. Neither is the post about the alleged gas attack of the other day. It is about how things in Syria might be helpfully or usefully framed.] – Bill

Its no coincidence jm, that just after Trump changes the US policy to removing Assad isnt a priority. “The US representative to the United Nations has said that the US is no longer prioritising the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad”. March 30http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39450570

And as Bill has pointed out, the White Helmets- which Im thinking are really just a syrian branch of UK MI6/SIS- have the most absurd propaganda from the usual western mouth pieces

Enter the White Helmets. Ordinary Syrians emerged from the dust that hangs over the rubble of cities like Aleppo, double-­timing it into some of the most dangerous places on earth to do what the world has refused to do—save Syrian lives.http://time.com/syria-white-helmets/

Of course in Syria there arent any good guys like the western media need to frame their stories,

Why the fuck would anyone believe that Assad, who was in the final stages of the war, had good international relations and was about to clean out ISIS would just all of the sudden gas a bunch of his own people.

Why the fuck would anyone believe that Assad, whose army has taken heavy casualties and is in poor shape for further offensives, might just opt for chemical warfare to clear a path to Idlib rather than committing his exhausted ground troops? Er, because that’s what the available evidence points to. But, whatever floats your boat.

[To reiterate and expand slightly on what I entered as a moderators note on that comment you’re replying to. The post is about the relationship some western governments have with headchoppers and also about the source of much of our news from the region. It is not about any chemical attack. Please stick to the topic of the post in any further comments. Cheers] – Bill

From what I’ve seen and read in various publications the situation in Syria is nowhere near as clear cut as you analogy suggests. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to suggest that the only Rebel Faction is ISIS. That’s not true. While it was somewhat simplified, BBC did a reasonably close approximation of the territorial divisions as they stand now. Assad hold sway over the SW quarter with a corridor extending east towards Iraq. ISIS are positioned towards the SE of Syria alongside the territory it controls in Iraq. The Kurds hold a large portion of the NE sector of Syria and clash with both ISIS and Assad’s forces. Other Rebel Forces hold sway over a smaller sector positioned in the NW corner of Syria. This last sector is where the MSF (Doctors without Borders) and several news outlets from different countries saw and reported the chemical attacks by Syrian/Assad’s jet aircraft. Who exactly are you suggesting are the “Headchoppers” referred to? If it’s ISIS, yes they are, but they weren’t the recipients of the chemical attacks; the rebels in the NW sector were. I think your analogy is somewhat in error if you’re suggesting that all the “Rebels” are a single group. Here in NZ there is an expat Syrian community, a large proportion of whom have ties and sympathies with the rebels in the NW enclave, and who intensely dislike ISIS as much as they dislike Assad. If we wish to hear first hand accounts of this conflict, I can think of no better source than those living here in NZ. I certainly view with suspicion anything emanating from Russia who are past masters at misinformation and disinformation. If I’ve read the argument of your article correctly, you seem to be warning that a potential conflict involving USA and Russia is being “manufactured” to position an “us vs them” syndrome. I prefer Occam’s Razor.

The analogy leaves out a host of actors – the Rojavans, the Iraqi Kurds, the Turks, the Russians.

There are countless Jihadist groups, and it is those I’m signposting. The governments of the UK and US and France (as well as others) are in bed with some of those groups, and yet they are all headchoppers.

That’s the only relationship the post is attempting to explain. The one between some western governments and headchoppers.

From what I’ve read in various papers, periodicals and journals (courtesy of UOC) the rebels that are victims of the chemical attack are the same rebels who started their demand for greater democracy during the “Arab Spring” uprisings in the early years of this decade. While I might agree that ISIS are “headchoppers”, I certainly find fault with labeling all rebels with that tag. If by that definition you mean those who executed their prisoners in a particularly brutal manner – slow decapitation with various knives and swords – then this is a particular trait of ISIS. Without documentary proof it is quite incorrect to label all rebel groups similarly. This is of course the disinformation emanating from Damascus and Moscow. I’m old enough to remember the atrocities of the Nazis and how the depths of their depravities were gradually revealed over the decades following the end of WWII – in fact some were not revealed until the late 1990s (e.g. the secret recordings of German POW officers boasting of their participation in round-ups in conquered USSR territory and subsequent murder squads – proving that the SS were not alone in these war crimes). I am familiar with the disinformation put out during the same decades by pro-Nazi/neo-Nazi groups. I am also familiar with the similar disinformation put out by the USSR and PRC covering up then revealing the gulags, the “great leap forward”, the “cultural revolution” etc. All of the techniques used are oh so familiar that they fall into a pattern. There is the exact same thing going on here from Putin and Assad – straight out disinformation. The story of “white helmets” is one such lie. The problem is that not nearly enough people blogging today are sufficiently sophisticated to recognise that they’ve been had. They are in fact contributors to the disinformation campaign – albeit unwitting ones. Just like spies, disinformation spreaders can be witting – i.e. fully knowledgeable about the lies they’re spreading, or unwitting – i.e. unknowingly spreading disinformation because the story fits in with their particular world view/ political viewpoint etc. I have to ask, Bill, which category do you fit into? I ask because the article repeats well known disinformation put out from Moscow through SVR sources.

This is a quote from the intro to the post. (From your comments I have no idea why you thought it didn’t apply to you)

If you’re determined to believe that western liberal democracy is essentially benign and only ever makes mistakes and honest mis-judgements, or is something that’s sometimes marred by an odd ‘bad apple’ or two, then this post on Syria probably isn’t the post for you.

This from a moderation note.

The post is about the relationship some western governments have with headchoppers and also about the source of much of our news from the region.

There are seven links in the post. None are from any source that some liberals like to dismiss as “fake news” sources. Most are video links that provide striking and incontrovertible back up to points made in the post.

This once, and only this once, you get away with going way off topic, being dishonest about what I’ve written and attacking me as an author in lieu of addressing the topic of the post.

Okay – point taken about off topic. In explanation, you’ll see from most of my comments on other matters, I’m way left of centre, but – and it’s a big but – in matters of International Relations, I defer to my tutors at Varsity.

International Relations are totally different from domestic politics and political theory. The actors are different and behave in a totally different manner. There’s a vast difference also between actors depending on their degree of democracy.

Here a knowledge of history is the guideline and filter – and yes there’s revisionist history and revised from recent disclosure history and a few other animals as well. But by and large, most history up till the end of the 20th is pretty factual and unarguable.

This is pertinent to the topic because gas attacks were outlawed after WWI, and haven’t been used by democracies since. The Nazis used gas in death camps and US used Agent Orange in Vietnam (so did a few other nations during their decolonisation wars), which explains why a particularly strong nerve was struck when Assad did it twice. Not just to me, but to others of my generation – we well remember the use of Zyclon-B and vowed “never again”. Has the next generation the guts to live up to that promise – I have my doubts after reading this.

Studied international relations. Found the bulk of tutors and lecturers were far too conservative and, well…basically apologists for western colonialism/adventurism. But maybe your Uni has a better department than the one I suffered. (I eventually discovered that the Anthropology Dept was far more critical and in-depth with their analyses)

Yep, had the same thing until Jim Ockey from USA – an anthropologist – added to the mix. Comparative Pols was easier, but IR dates to Machiavelli (and somewhat before), but as a History minor I was better able to put the IR theories into perspective – also did a few INCO (interdisciplinary) courses to further get “the other side of things”. Taught you to be much more critical of sources and really only trust primes – and to be very skeptical of URLs. There’s a fairly large and divergent range of theories which doesn’t help either – no one size fits all in IR.

I don’t think things in Syria will improve until the Syrian people want it to.

As far as I am concerned Assad/ISIS/Opposition groups are all as bad as each other.

The civilian population isn’t exactly innocent either – as we can see with what is happening in Europe many of the refugees are abusing the good generosity of their host countries and are trying to turn Europe into the same cultural dysfunction that is in Syria.

As for an answer?? I can only see three possible scenarios:

1 The civil war drags on until one of the groups fighting gains the ascendancy and replaces Assad as a dominant dictatorship.

2 The civil war drags on – no groups gains the ascendancy and Syria turns into a glorified Lebanon – each warlord has his own territory.

3 The US/Coalition basically repeats what they did in Iraq – at great expense and cost of tears, blood, and lives.

I’m not sure if any of these options are desirable – I am not even sure if the Syrian population at large knows or wants to live at peace – just not part of their culture.

Your right Skeptic ……………. the main head choppers in Syria are Al Qaeda affiliated …

They go by the name of Al nusra …… so people dont get hung up with airliners flying into Twin towers baggage ….. or embassy bombings …. truck bombs …. car bombs …. decapitations ……….. and other things that go with extremist jihad terrorist clubs.

There is a difference between the “Fundamentalist Islamic” rebels – ISIS, AQ, and various others – who are largely situated in the SE region of Syria bordering Iraq – and the rebels holding the enclave in the NW of Syria. Assad and Russia are targeting the latter groups using chemical weapons. Those groups include most of the democracy seekers who tried to effect change through protest during the “Arab Spring” uprisings and have very little – if noting to do with the fundamentalists. If this difference is not made clear to those commenting here, then this site has become yet another tool for Russian/Assad disinformation – see my earlier post. I would suggest that those posting URL links – especially blog links – check, double-check and triple check these, because this is a classic disinformation campaign using such tactics. Remember those 30,000 paid Russian trolls the FBI has identified – along with a goodly number of the offending ISP – the ones who they now think infiltrated the US election and are trying to do the same in France – well guess what’s among their other tasks? It’s not rocket science is it? The question is – do we at The Standard become unwitting tools of theirs?

Maybe you would like to tell us the outside support for the rebel groups in Syria has included the US on the sly- bring weapons from Libya through Turkey and into Syria. Is that another thing those ‘Putin trolls’ were able to conjure up? There is the history of the US ‘evidence’ for chemical weapons in the middle east, which doesnt inspire confidence over the US version of events.

Even Flynn a while back wasnt sure sure about a previous 2013 sarin attack

“During a 2015 trip to Russia, Donald Trump’s pick to be national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, said he didn’t know whether the 2013 sarin gas attack in Syria was conducted by the Syrian Army or by other forces in an attempt to draw the United States into the conflict.” Thats when ( 2013 attack) hes was still Director of Defense Intelligence Agency.http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/20/politics/kfile-michael-flynn-rt-syria/

To me he was being honest and saying that no one really knew what side was doing what.

For your info dof, this way off-topic meandering has been ended. Skeptic’s reply to this comment has been shunted to open mike. If you can be bothered pursuing the argument, then please feel free to do it. But over there. (Link)

You do a good job of regurgitating the western propaganda and being a tool of those who supply the money, weapons and foreign Jihadist fighters ….. without which the Proxy war in Syria would have ended long ago.

So your a tool for extending the war ……

Others may be interested in learning about the propaganda sources and what is really happening with all these wars and killing.

They lied about Afghanistan ( for over 30 years now ) ….New Zealand is killing three year old children, and telling lies about that …as a result.

After all the lies involving Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya…. The ones involving Syria look the most piss weak ……

Before taking into context they are being told by war criminals who compulsively lie…

David Kilcullen pretty well sum’s it up on what’s happening in Syria ATM.

David Kilcullen, former Australian soldier, counter-insurgency expert and has spent time on the ground throughout the Middle East Region in the 10plus years. His last book “Blood Year, Islamic state and the Failures of The War on Terror” is worth reading.

In a bit of revisionist history, we’re going to imagine that Italian troops are right there with the Germans.

That’s not revisionist history, it’s history. The Soviet Union was invaded by Axis forces, not just Germany. Italy contributed multiple units to Unternehmen Barbarossa.

Still, Barbarossa’s kind of an apt comparison, in that it featured a lot of people (in the Baltic Republics and Ukraine) who wanted out from under the heel of a dictatorship, but they fighting was mostly being done by various flavours of totalitarianism that had nothing good to offer the people of those countries. For the people of eastern Europe, it didn’t matter who won, they were fucked. I can see why you might think it’s an apt comparison for the people of Syria, but your comparison seems to assume the USSR was an entity worthy of continued existence, which it wasn’t.

Headchopper this headchopper that – what is it with that line that is so appealing? Is it worse than what every other combatant does when they kill maim or obliterate people over there? Is it just shorthand for something – i dont get it tbh.

Just a personal take, but when a group of people regard chopping a person’s head off as an integral and legitimate part of civil society, then that marks them out in relation to all the maiming (gratuitous or otherwise) that a soldier (either muslim, christian, atheist agnostic or whatever) might indulge in, in a war setting.

Also, if we talk of Jihadists, the wriggle room to demarcate some as good and some as bad exists. I don’t believe that same space is afforded when the term headchopper is applied.

Thirdly, jihad (as I understand it) is a personal quest for truth or meaning and not some call to war that headchoppers use it to be.

Fourthly? I don’t think it’s useful or helpful to frame things in terms that lend themselves to nonsense about ‘war of civilisations’ or any such. And other terms do that by placing ‘everything’ firmly within an Islamic context. Now sure, some might argue that as far as Iraq and Syria and Libya and Afghanistan are concerned, we actually are looking at an Islamic context. But when that context is thrown up and out there as a ‘catch all’ – an ‘othering’ that subtly allows any western self examination to be avoided, then again, I don’t find that useful.

Have you watched the videos of them kicking the living shit out of old men in the street? Braining them with cinder blocks?

You’re aware that Assad released headchoppers to taint the revolution? That senior intel figures admit this? That he left the headchoppers to run areas that he then attacked when the black flags came down and the green ones went up? That supporting headchoppers was an integral part of syrian policy vis a vis the Iraq war? That a large part of the dominace of headchoppers in syria relates to blowback stemming from that support?

Here’s a piece with quotes from senior Syrian intel officials outlining Assad’s strategy and detailing the stuff about releasing headchoppers. There’s lots of detail in it, and if you’re familiar with Baathist counterinsurgency and control tactics it’ll all seem pretty familiar

[To repeat. The post is about the relationship some western governments have with headchoppers and also about the source of much of our news from the region. And that’s it. That relationship, sketched out and backed by links in the post, might be very uncomfortable for some people. And that was why I included the intro that I did. You want to indulge in an ‘info wars’ type debate that will never rise any higher than a school ground “my daddy’s bigger than your daddy, so I’m right” kind of nonsense, then you can do that. But not in this thread.] – Bill

apologies, I thought it was on topic as to the ‘headchoppers’ terminology discussion, and the notion that the west is backing them. there seemed to be an implication that Assad is not, or has not.

that is simply false. the story of Assad’s collaboration with the headchoppers is not comfortable for either the backers of assad/Putin (for obvious reasons) or for the west, (as it complicates the narrative around why we didn’t do more to support the revolution particularly in the early stages. It’s not a story the western narrative about it being hard to know who to support gels well with).

as to me wanting to start some sort of schoolyard biffo, I simply responded to a request for cites, with some cites.

There’s lots of detail in there that is crucial for actually understanding the war and getting beyond the largely irrelevant fights about whether or not the white helmets are black or white. those arguments tend not to actually be about Syria, but are arguments about who is the more woke leftist.

See, this is the thing. Again. The topic of the post is…? (Go read it and the links provided if you’re still not getting it)

Which makes an utter mockery of this claim of yours to be

getting beyond the largely irrelevant fights about whether or not the white helmets are black or white. those arguments tend not to actually be about Syria, but are arguments about who is the more woke leftist.

When almost all coverage of events in Syria from ‘on the ground’ is coming in the shape of White Helmet videos and/or claims fed through the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is a one man (Abdel Rahman) operation based in Coventry, England in receipt of government funding, it’s anything but irrelevant to get a grip on where the White Helmets come from, who funds them, and what their agenda is. The same can be said in respect of who provided or provides Abdel Rahman with his extensive network of people within Syria and discovering who those people are – their agendas and allegiances.

One reason that’s important is that they are passed off to us by western msm as neutral and reliable sources of info.

edit. Any discerning person might also ask a question or two about all of those supposed “citizen activists” that had remarkable amounts of penetration into western msm during the liberation of Aleppo’s eastern districts, but who all seem to have taken advantage of free passage to Idlib as part and parcel of the motley crew of armed headchoppers/terrorists.

as opposed to the white helmet mythbusters who are one man bands with youtube accounts funded by… who the hell knows because youtube is opaque as hell.

the white helmets literally don’t matter. And seriously, there are loads of ME media sources you can look to. And yes, they too have agendas. Even your sources have agendas Bill. You too are falling to your knees for a bell that is wringing.

but whatever, I’ll leave you to your thread, where disagreeing with your framing is a sign of mental cowardice or schoolyard biffo, or what have you that can get you thrown off because, fuck knows why.

One sub thread was terminated. No-one has been prevented from commenting. Bells don’t ‘wring’. And if you can’t handle the evidence presented by the links in the post and/or have nothing to add to discussion on the topic at hand, then sure, by all means leave the thread.

so when you say that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is a’one man band’, what do you mean, exactly?

Do you mean it literally, in that he is working alone from london just scouring the internet?

Or is it as a framing exercise in that while he is the sole employee he has and uses a few hundred sources within Syria, so highlight the ‘sole actor’ thing to discredit?

This is the point I am making which you keep ignoring, and pretend I am not even mentioning.

My point, to labour it in the hope you finally see it, is that there are competing frames, this is not perfidy. It’s just common plain old conflict.

You don’t have to buy into Assadist nonsense or justify it on order to be sceptical of western narratives. In fact, you should be bloody careful to not do that, given that Assad really is a fucking arsehole.

Your precious intro, which I have read a number of times in an attempt to find a point, frames anyone who isn’t reflexively anti-western as an intellectual coward. You double down on this in comments saying if I don’t address your ‘evidence (including unverifiable youtube accounts) then I can’t ‘handle’ it.

My point is that this is not at all a ‘useful way of framing things’ given what we know about Assad. We have far more, and better, evidence that Assad has assisted the headchoppers to a direct degree than we do for the west. Your framing looks like conspiratorial horseshit of the type that ends up with you repeating Assadist and alt-right propaganda simply because it opposes something you also oppose., It decontextualises things to an absurd degree, and you respond to people who add context by saying they are ‘off topic’ or can take their arguments elsewhere. It’s a farce mate.

“How he built that network, given that he left Syria 13 years ago…Oh, hang on! The Guardian link from last May provided in the post might give us a clue, eh?

There is, afterall, his admission that he receives money from a “European country that he declines to identify”

longer quote fro context on that money

His exposure to politics started at age 7, he said, after his family’s landlord hit his sisters for sitting on the building’s roof. Neighbors who saw the altercation refused to testify because the landlord was an Alawite with a brother in military security.

Mr. Abdul Rahman owned a clothing store but secretly wrote pamphlets denouncing unfair privileges granted to a few while most Syrians had to line up for basic goods. Born Osama Suleiman, he adopted a pseudonym during those years of activism and has used it publicly ever since.

When two associates were arrested in 2000, he fled the country, paying a human trafficker to smuggle him into England. The government resettled him in Coventry, where he decided he liked the slow pace. He says his main regret is having to drive 30 minutes to Birmingham for a decent Arab restaurant.

Money from two dress shops covers his minimal needs for reporting on the conflict, along with small subsidies from the European Union and one European country that he declines to identify.

Previous to that section it goes into detail about “How he built that network”. he started his org in 2006, so not after 13 years eh? It talks about how he taped into a pre exiting skype network of activists. So he didn’t build the network, he tapped into an existing one.

Seems plausible to me that a network of activists would be glad to have an expat safely in the UK to do things they couldn’t safely do, doesn’t it? So no need to make any leaps from:

Thank you to the author of this post. By acknowledging the cruel malevolence of the whiteHelmets and their exposed connections to western intelligence and the terrorist organizations – the deception practices of ‘the west’ – you acknowledge the extent of perfidy we are subject to.

Its shorthand for using a very sharp blade to seperate a persons head from there body in a ritualustic fasion usually involving video documentation and victims that have nothing to do with the fighting of ages ranging from very young to quite old.

‘Barrel bombs were used in Palestine and Israel during 1947-48. They were first used by militant Zionist groups in Palestine against the British. They were later used by Jews against Arabs, and also by Arabs against Jewish targets en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrel_bombs_in_Palestine_and_Israel

“When we told you our boats were attacked in the Gulf of Tonkin, we were lying. When we told you Iraqis were throwing Kuwaiti babies out of incubators, we were lying. When we blew up a medicine factory and told you it was Bin Laden’s headquarters, we were lying. When we told you Iraq had WMD, we were lying. When we told you Gadaffi was feeding his troops Viagra so they could rape protestors, we were lying. But we swear to God we are telling the absolute truth this time. Why would we lie?”

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This is the new Basic rebuttal to the myth 'Holistic Management can reverse Climate Change'. There's also an Advanced rebuttal. The Myth: Holistic Management can reverse Climate Change “Holistic management as a planned grazing strategy is able to reverse desertification and ...

by Daphna Whitmore Not a single person has spoken in favour of the gunman who carried out the horrific massacre in Christchurch, yet there is talk of cracking down on free speech, and mostly it is coming from the ...

I was expecting to spend today blogging about climate change, building on the enormous message of hope sent by the school strike on Friday. Instead, like everyone else, I'm struggling to deal with the aftermath of a horrific act of ...

Wajahat Khan becomes a New Zealand citizen tomorrow. On Saturday, before leading the opening prayer at the vigil in Aotea Square, he told the thousands who had gathered there how happy and proud he was at the prospect.The fact that ...

James Robb on The Christchurch atrocity and the need for a class political response Today we mourn with our Muslim brothers and sisters all those killed and injured in the Christchurch terror attack, and send our solidarity and condolences to ...

Story of the Week... Editorial of the Week... El Niño/La Niña Update... Toon of the Week... SkS in the News... Reports of Note... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... ...

The North Shore Line, The Northern Line, Te Raki Tereina… NZTA in a recently released report showed that there is some urgency in starting work to replace the Northern Busway with a higher capacity rail system on a new crossing. ...

Our Darkest Day: New Zealand has been horribly scarred by a fanatical follower of the international white supremacist movement. He hid among us in plain sight, masking his murderous intentions from his Dunedin neighbours, the Police, the SIS and the ...

A Give a Little Fund was set up on 15 March 2019 and in just two days over $3 million has been donated. Donations can be made here. There has been an outpouring of demonstrations taking place around the country ...

The immediate response of most Kiwis to the Christchurch slaughter will have been shock and incredulity. But as the full dimensions and implications of the outrage become clearer, we need to reach a longer-term understanding. Yes, it is unthinkable that ...

The killing of forty-nine people in Christchurch was an act of terror, allegedly committed by at least one individual motivated by white-supremacist ideology. We know this, as our Prime Minister already has publicly called this evil by its true name. read ...

I wrote some explainers on this site about New Zealand’s Terrorism Suppression Act following the Uruwera Raids. I won't link to them as they are somewhat out of date. While still largely accurate for their descriptions of the offences of ...

As we wake up the day after 49 people were murdered at two mosques in Christchurch, it's to a flurry of comments about how New Zealand will never be the same, has lost its innocence and is no longer beyond ...

Every weekend we dig into the archives. This post by Matt was originally published in June 2016. Takapuna is considered one of Auckland’s key metropolitan centres – which the Auckland Plan describes as: Metropolitan centres, such as Takapuna and Manukau, will ...

The massacre of at least 49 people – in and just outside two mosques in Christchurch- this afternoon (Friday, March 15) is a horror that has shocked much of the country. People are saying ‘not here’. Ok, that’s understandable. However we ...

By Simon Connell and Colin Gavaghan, Otago Faculty of LawCattle rustling. To many of us city slicker types, it sounds like a throwback to a by-gone time. Maybe old Western films on a Saturday morning. read more ...

After the report of the Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor put to rest the disastrous and costly moral panic around supposed "methamphetamine contamination" nearly a year ago, the industry that had grown around unfounded claims about meth residues and health ...

Massey University, the Tertiary Education Union, and Women@Massey hosted a morning tea on 8 March to celebrate International Women’s Day and launch the updated report on pay and employment equity at the University. ...

Sharn Riggs, national secretary of the Tertiary Education Union, considers what the government’s proposed reform of vocational education means for work and emphasises the need for high-quality permanent jobs. ...

What Are You trying To Say? The contrast between Helen Clark’s stewardship of New Zealand foreign policy and Jacinda Ardern’s is stark. Ardern’s generation, raised in the shadow of Rogernomics, has never evinced the same strong interest in international issues ...

Purposeful Renegade: As an economics student, not only was Kate Raworth (above) never told the ultimate purpose of economics, but also, she told Kathryn Ryan on RNZ's Nine To Noon, she and her fellow students were never encouraged to ask.KATE ...

Thousands of schoolkids around New Zealand have walked out of class today in a school strike for the climate. They're part of a global movement, sparked by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, which is sacrificing a day of education to demand ...

Today, children are striking, and demanding of us, “If you won’t act like adults, we will.” Their letter says poignantly: Soon we will inherit the consequences of this inaction, and we are scared. Will we have a planet worth passing ...

Towards the end of the Soviet Union, intelligence analysts in the US began to focus more on its social geography and less on its military capabilities (which if formidable were not keeping pace with US technological advancements). This came about ...

Without Power: The Venezuelan Government is under no illusions concerning those responsible for the energy blackout currently afflicting its citizens. President Nicolas Maduro has declared his country to be the victim of a cyber-attack initiated and overseen by the US ...

The State Services Commission released its six-monthly OIA statistics yesterday, reporting basic information on volume and timeliness (but nothing on outcome or quality of response). But while the official press release crows about improved timeliness, there's a twist:As signalled late ...

Over the coming decades Auckland’s budding rapid transit network is expected to grow significantly, approximately tripling in size from what it is today. While a decent proportion of will be new and extended busways, new rail lines will also be ...

Still winter nights without rain clouds are usually followed by a frost. The clouds reflect back the heat coming off the earth maintaining higher ambient temperatures, thereby reducing the risk of frost.read more ...

A decade ago, the public fought a battle with Meridian Energy over the Mokihinui hydro scheme - a plan to build a dam on conservation land, flooding a scenic river gorge. Now the area has been protected forever by addign ...

Tax Working Group head, Michael Cullen, asserts that the capital gains tax (CGT) is best described as a “tax on capital income”. Since when have capital gains been income? Show me any country’s national income accounts that include them in ...

A couple of developments in the past week or so have cast a fresh light on a familiar question – should we be worried about the possibility that agents of foreign governments can buy influence in our politics and government? ...

Last year, the government announced that they would hold an inquiry into Operation Burnham, the SAS operation in which six Afghan civilians were killed, including a child. But now, it looks as if the "inquiry" is instead becoming a British-style ...

So, having rejected Theresa May's shit Brexit deal, UK MP's were told to vote until they got it right - and rejected it again. Which means that the UK is now just 16 days from Brexit and has no plan ...

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bud Ward Wally Broecker, photographed around 2010 (Credit: Bruce Gilbert, via Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory) The climate science community has lost one of the real titans of its field. Geochemist Wallace Broecker – ...

. . A recent bold statement from current National Party leader, Simon Bridges, declared his intentions should a capital gains tax (CGT) be enacted; . . “…No ifs, no buts, no caveats, I will repeal this CGT as Prime Minister ...

In a Westminster-style, parliamentary democracy such as ours – and one that, despite MMP, remains essentially a two-party contest – it is inevitable that many of us will choose a side and then see nothing but good in our preferred ...

This is a guest post by Glenn Koorey from ViaStrada. Do you know how many fatal or injury road crashes there were in 2018? No, neither did I, until I looked it up. Turns out there were 11,433 injury crashes, ...

On its face, today's news that the Police have referred Jami-Lee Ross' now-five-month old allegations about Simon Bridges, the National Party and $100,000 in donations to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) looks like a very big deal.read more ...

by Daphna Whitmore The public have an opportunity to make submissions on gender identity being included in the Human Rights Act. The campaigning group Speak Up For Women are encouraging people to submit. The Ministry of Justice have opened ...

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The Governments of Australia and New Zealand have announced the membership of the Australia and New Zealand Electronic Invoicing Board (ANZEIB) today. This is an important step towards implementing e-Invoicing across both countries to help businesses save time and money ...

Workers who are paying too much tax because of incorrect secondary tax codes are in line for relief with the passage of legislation through Parliament late last night. The Taxation (Annual Rates for 2018-19, Modernising Tax Administration, and Remedial Matters) ...

Efforts to reverse the decline in the Chatham Islands pāua fishery are the focus of a new plan jointly agreed between government, the local community and industry. Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash says the plan was developed by the PauaMAC4 Industry ...

The Police will get stronger powers of search and seizure to crackdown on synthetic drugs under new legislation, which makes the two main synthetics (5F-ADB and AMB-FUBINACA) Class A drugs. The Government has today introduced the Misuse of Drugs Amendment ...

Further steps to combat tax evasion Revenue Minister Stuart Nash has announced New Zealand is expanding its global ability to combat tax evasion by joining forces with authorities in 30 countries and jurisdictions. Cabinet has agreed to add another ...

The New Zealand Bar Association welcomes the Government’s ban on assault rifles today. NZBA’s council member, Josh McBride, says that immediate changes to the underlying legislation are now required to ensure that all military specification ...

The New Zealand Bar Association welcomes the Government’s ban on assault rifles today. NZBA’s council member, Josh McBride, says that immediate changes to the underlying legislation are now required to ensure that all military specification ...

We are delighted for Helen Clark to become Patron of the new independent think tank with University of Auckland called “The Helen Clark Foundation.” The Helen Clark Foundation is a new organisation and needs your support to grow. Helen Clark ...

While last Friday’s terrorist attack in Christchurch was the first for New Zealand, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Australia and non-resident to New Zealand says his country has been victims of violence and terrorism for more than four decades. ...

"This will not be popular among some of our members but after a week of intense debate and careful consideration by our elected representatives and staff, we believe this is the only practicable solution," Feds Rural Security spokesperson Miles ...

That the accused was able to inflict so much harm in such a short time as a licensed firearm user with an easily modified semi-automatic rifle is deeply troubling and must be kept in mind as we discuss as a ...

A vigil has been organised by a coalition of community groups led by Muslims, tangata whenua and migrants standing in firm solidarity with Aotearoa’s Muslim community, following the violent white supremacist terrorist attack targeting two Christchurch ...

Auckland Council has turned topsy-turvy with its vote to approve a $63 million bailout for Eden Park, including a $10 million no-strings-attached grant, says the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance . Ratepayers’ Alliance spokesperson Jo Holmes says, “Councillors ...

After the deaths of fifty people who were in the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre at prayer on Friday, the Methodist church joins in the grief of those who bear these losses directly, and in the public grief ...

In the March edition of The Fringe Magazine Waitakere Ranges Local Board chairman Greg Presland has shared his views on the imminent lodging of the resource consent for the proposed new Huia Water Treatment Plant in Waima, Titirangi. “It is ...

Primary teachers and principals will now vote in online ballots about whether to accept the Ministry's latest collective agreement offers, following the cancellation of this week's paid union meetings. ...

In school, we all learnt the phrase, "Beware the Ides of March" courtesy of Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar. The soothsayer's warning to Caesar was brushed aside and Caesar assassinated a little later in the day. For the last nearly 420 ...

A censorious and censoring attitude has engulfed responses to the mental airings of the Christchurch shooter. Material in connection with Brenton Tarrant, the alleged gunman behind the killing of 50 individuals at two mosques in New Zealand, is drying ...

The Chair of Skills Active Aotearoa, the ITO for sport, exercise, recreation and the performing arts, has described the one-week extension for submissions on the Reform of Vocational Education as “paltry”. ...

As people process the attack at two mosques in Christchurch, our Muslim whānau are hurting. But there is an outpouring of love and unity coming from across New Zealand and around the world. Thousands of people have shared messages of ...

The New Zealand Maori Council is calling on Maori from right across the nation to come out this Friday in a national show of support for the whanau and victims of last week’s terrorist attacks in Christchurch. ...

Secretary to the Treasury Gabriel Makhlouf spoke to the New Zealand India Trade Alliance in Auckland last evening on the New Zealand-India economic relationship and where the Treasury sees the opportunities and obstacles between the two countries. The ...

“The conversation New Zealand is now having regarding the use of military-style semi-automatic firearms (MSSA’s) is important and the Game Animal Council wishes to clarify several aspects in relation to their use for hunting game animals,” ...

As leaders of Abrahamic faith communities we come together to offer our deepest and most heartfelt condolences to all those who have been victimised and traumatised by this evil attack on our Muslim community in Christchurch. For all of us, ...

ACC wishes to clarify that the supports and entitlements available for family members of those killed in Friday’s terrorist attack in Christchurch is the same regardless of whether they live in New Zealand or overseas. A funeral grant, a survivor’s ...

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) extends its deepest sympathies to the victims of the massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand. We urge all the governments and the people of the world to support New Zealand’s efforts to deal with the ...

Vodafone, Spark, Vocus and 2degrees are warning all customers to be cautious of scammers looking to take advantage of Kiwi generosity and benefit from the Christchurch terror attack through fraudulent donations. ...

Fifty people died in the shooting and 31 people remain in hospital. Writing on RNZ , Anjum Rahman from the Islamic Women’s Council of New Zealand detailed repeated attempts to lobby Government to stem discrimination against their community. ...

The National Church Leaders gathered in Wellington today (Tuesday 19th March 2019) to express their profound horror at the terrible violence towards Muslim people in Christchurch mosques last Friday. We are deeply saddened by these tragic events and ...

An Australian security expert says if New Zealand had stronger guns laws, Friday’s attack would not have been as devastating as it was. Director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute Border Security Programme, Dr John Coyne, says, “had the New ...

Solidarity for NZ: Trade unions around the world send messages The Public Service Association (PSA) has collated messages it has received from trade unions around the world, sending their condolences and solidarity in response to the Christchurch ...

Due to the tragic acts of violence against the Muslim community in Christchurch last Friday, the “Pacific People Say NO to the End Of Life Choice Bill” at Parliament scheduled for tomorrow Tuesday 19 March has been postponed. ...

The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) welcomes the inquiry into the Christchurch terrorist attacks. “The Christchurch terrorist attacks are a horrific demonstration of violent extremism which has no place in New Zealand. NZSIS offers ...

“The attacks on Friday were an abhorrent challenge to everything that New Zealand holds dear. GCSB’s thoughts are with the families, friends and communities of the victims at this time,” said Andrew Hampton, Director-General of GCSB. ...

The National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of New Zealand, in condemning the recent massacre of innocent Muslims, calls on the people of Aotearoa to examine the destructive social forces that led to Friday's tragedy. “We extend our heartfelt ...

On behalf of all Grey Power Members and Associations I would like to extend our condolences and deepest sympathy’s to the victims and their families of the horrendous attacks that occurred in Christchurch this week. As New Zealanders we stand ...

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Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Bi-partisan changes to gun laws announced, immigration minister urged to step in on visas of attack victim families, and stats lay bare Islamophobia in media.The first major law change since the ...

The former NZ PM says the global policy boss for the online behemoth has contacted her saying he wants to visit NZ, following an angry backlash against the platform over its livestream of a mass terrorist murder at a Christchurch ...

The Christchurch Mosque Shootings saw journalists scrambling the country over to cover the unfolding horror. New Zealand’s subreddit experienced an unprecedented rush too, swamping the volunteer moderators and exposing them to some of the worst reactions on Reddit. We speak ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra With the election likely to be called in about a fortnight – the weekend after the April 2 budget – behind the scenes Labor is ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Don Driscoll, Professor in Terrestrial Ecology, Deakin University The future management of New South Wales’s national parks is one of the issues on the line in Saturday’s state election. Other states will ...

KiwiSaver fund manager Milford Asset Management dumped its shareholdings in social media giant Facebook on Monday and joined the call from government-backed retirement fund managers for Facebook, Google and Twitter to take greater care monitoring content posted to social media ...

Farmers and investors will need to be patient with Fonterra Cooperative Group's overhaul of its business, which sometime-critic First NZ Capital analyst Arie Dekker says is moving in the right direction. ...

Armed police bedecked with flowers amid heightened national security following the Christchurch mosque attacks last Friday. Traditionazlly, New Zealand police are unarmed. Image: Sulzy/Twitter By RNZ News Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today announced a New Zealand ban on all ...

The government’s language so far is imprecise and it must word its ban carefully to stand up against a ferocious lobby from pro-gun groups.New Zealand lawmakers will need to write the law banning semi-automatic weapons so that it can’t be ...

Twenty years ago – before Instagram – a game about documenting your every move was released. That game was Pokémon Snap.The year was 1999. Hilary Swank was playing Brandon Teena, something that would now absolutely not be allowed. Troye Sivan was basically a fetus, ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Dodd, Director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne When Judge Peter Kidd sentenced Cardinal George Pell last week, it was broadcast live on radio and television. It was ...

To mark the launch of the Helen Clark Foundation’s first report, its executive director Katherine Errington writes about New Zealand’s potential to become a ‘green’ hydrogen exporter.Much has been written about hydrogen of late, debating its place in the transition ...

Literal fake news is fuelling attempts to divide New Zealand’s religious communities, writes Aaron Hendry, an Auckland youth worker and Christian.In the wake of Friday’s horrific attack there is no doubt that New Zealand has changed. But perhaps one of ...

Political Roundup: Playing the Christchurch terrorism blame-game is dangerous by Dr Bryce Edwards Dr Bryce Edwards.Jacinda Ardern has led the way in how she’s responded to the Christchurch terrorist atrocity. The prime minister has emphasised the need to come ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Kotzmann, Lecturer in Law, Deakin University Your lipstick and foundation will be less likely to come at the expense of animal welfare, thanks to Commonwealth legislation that passed in recent weeks. ...

PGG Wrightson’s largest shareholder Alan Lai and his company Agria have been fined $220,000 and ordered to pay another $30,000 in costs by the High Court for breaching good character conditions imposed by the Overseas Investment Office. ...

The fifth work in Yona Lee’s In Transit series is currently exhibiting at Wellington’s City Gallery. Megan Dunn writes on the aspirations of the piece and how comfortably it sits in a gallery context.On a Sunday afternoon I opened my laptop and ...

New Zealand’s economy grew less than the central bank expected in the fourth quarter but economists don't expect the data to spur any change in the Reserve Bank's message at next week's policy review. ...

The sudden closure of Wellington’s Central Library was a shock to residents in the capital. Gem Wilder reflects on her love for the library and her hopes for its future.I received the news via the Wellington City Council twitter account, ...

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Rassell, Nanoartist and creative-practice based researcher in Media, RMIT University As an experimental video-maker working at scales smaller than molecules, I surround myself in a variety of scientific visualisations. In reading ...

How dare our national airline continue to brand itself with Indigenous symbols while rejecting employees who wear those same symbols on their bodies, writes Leonie Pihama.As I sit at a conference on the island of Maui, I see tā moko ...

The removal of extremist content alone isn’t going to solve the problem of right-wing terrorism. Instead, we need to harness new technology to find such individuals early and intervene.Last week, 50 lives in Christchurch were lost in another act of ...

The PM has confirmed an inquiry will be held into the circumstances leading up to the Christchurch terrorist attacks. Alex Braae asks they will have to look into.In the wake of the terrorist attack in Christchurch, questions are being raised ...

Newsletter: New Zealand Politics Daily – March 21 2019Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage. The Beehive and Parliament Buildings.Today’s contentChristchurch mosque shootings ...

The pending announcement of the Sunwolves’ exit from Super Rugby points to a collective agreement from the SANZAAR unions that the Nations Championship is the future. However, trickle-down economics may be a hard sell for their constituents. The dollars are ...

This Race Relations Day, we call on all New Zealanders to take time out of their day to reflect. To stand united in mourning with victims of Christchurch, write Pancha Narayanan president of Multicultural New Zealand, and Paul Hunt, the chief ...